John Horgan

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Biography

Dr. John C. Horgan earned his B.A. in history and political science at Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, his M.A. in history at Marquette University and Doctor of Arts in Modern World History at St. John’s University in New York, New York. In addition to his service as an assistant professor of history at Concordia University-Wisconsin, he taught history at Milwaukee Area Technical College, Suffolk County Community College (New York) and the New School for Social Research (New York).

At Concordia he teaches courses in Western and American civilization, the Non-Western World, Modern Europe, France, Germany, America, and Africa while serving as the History Department’s webmaster. In 2004 he presented a paper to the American Historical Association’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C. on economic sanctions, American churches and South Africa. In 2007 his articles on French perspectives of the United States and international perspectives of U.S. environmental policy were published in Global Perspectives on the United States (Berkshire Publishing). In 2009, he contibuted an article on natural and man-made disasters in Chinese history to the Encyclopedia on China (Berkshire Publishing). In 2011, Berkshire Publishing included his article on sustainability in Shanghai, China in its multi-volume work on Sustainability and the Environment. Most recently, he has contributed two articles on Aesop's Fables and Justinian's Plague to the Ancient History Encyclopedia. His on-going reading and research interests include civilian relief during World War I, plagues and diseases in world history and food history.

Contributions

During the reign of the emperor Justinian I (527-565 CE), one of the worst outbreaks of the plague took place, claiming the lives of millions of people. The plague arrived in Constantinople in 542 CE, almost a year after the disease first made its appearance in the outer provinces of the empire. The outbreak continued to sweep throughout the Mediterranean... [continue reading]

Written by a former Greek slave, in the late to mid-6th century BCE, Aesop’s Fables are the world’s best known collection of morality tales. The fables, numbering 725, were originally told from person-to-person as much for entertainment purposes but largely as a means for relaying or teaching a moral or lesson. These early stories are essentially allegorical... [continue reading]

Aesop (c. 620-564 BCE) was an Ancient Greek fabulist or story teller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as Aesop's Fables. Although his existence remains uncertain and (if they ever existed) no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a storytelling tradition... [continue reading]